Thursday, August 12, 2010

The 10 percent solution

I really need to understand Charlie Baker's math -- why is he only responsible for 10 percent of Big Dig financing? Why not 7.65 percent. Or 56.23 percent?

As yet another neglected bridge crumbles, Baker, Deval Patrick and Tim Cahill sent fingers flying in a flurry of charges and counter charges that provided enough air to affect global warming. But amidst all the usual rhetoric was this curious comment by Baker about the Big Dig:

“I have taken responsibility for the 10 percent of the financing plan that I worked with the Legislature and the federal government and others to put together,’’ he said. “But the Big Dig was a 25-year project, bipartisan in nature, and there were lots and lots of people who owned a piece of that project, and I’ve taken full responsibility for the part I owned.’’

For a man campaigning on his leadership skills and a pledge to take responsibility for the "mess" he is seeking to inherit, it's a really curious declaration of independence from the mess he left behind.

Not to mention his math is as baffling as the grant anticipation notes and other fiscal gimmicks he helped to craft to push the financial problem -- not to mention the maintenance of roads and bridges now crumbling before our eyes -- off into the future.

And that future is now, part of the very same mess he is trying to pin on Patrick.